Nation Impossible

Author(s): M. S. S. Pandian
Source: Economic and Political Weekly , Mar. 7 - 13, 2009, Vol. 44, No. 10 (Mar. 7 - 13,
2009), pp. 65-69
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40278782

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

Economic and Political Weekly is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend
access to Economic and Political Weekly

This content downloaded from

175.111.134.80 on Mon, 13 Nov 2023 19:53:43 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 W^MMt. JBl^MJJ^JÎQNMSçj^MniON

Nation Impossible
a national sameness or homogeneity - a
question that unwittingly admits that na-
tions are not pre-given though they are
claimed to be so. Outlining the condition
MSS PANDIAN
of possibility for a nation to be brought
into being, the committee declared,
To forget - and I would venture say - to get
Given the impossibility of the
Nationhood
one's history wrong, are essential factors in has a strong psychological basis
nation-form as an enablingthe and
making of a nation; and thus the depends on the people concerned hav-
advance
ing had similar experiences and, what is
of historical study is a danger to nationality
political arrangement of our times -Ernest Renan. no less important, interpreting them in the
- after all, we have experimented same way. If political and other events con-
with it for over two centuries - vey different meaning to different groups,
or historically specific,1
they will continue to be a source of dissen-
nations share a common quality,
the work of imagination and the tion and disintegration. ..(ibid: 2).
i e, they are an arbitrary politi-
work of politics need to seek
cal form. More than anything else, the This cardinal principle of nation insists
newer, pluralistic and enabling
very story of national borders vouches for on similar experiences and vetoes out dif-
this arbitrariness. There are always lines ferent interpretations of such experiences.
forms of politics beyond the
control and disputed stretches. When Its message is thus simple: "Think alike".
nation-form. The thoughtofof
there are no lines of control or disputed In other words, difference seemingly has
Tagore and Periyar offers us at
stretches, they turn out to be unmanagea- no place in the national order of things.
least two premises to re-imagine
bly porous (Abraham and Schendel 2005). The committee's recommendation of how
politics beyond the nation-form. the Indian national anthem had to be sung
1 Introduction is a telling case in point. Claiming that
First, politics has to be a perennial
"singing the Anthem is something which
National borders change through annexa-
contestation of different forms of
admits
tions, break-ups and unifications. Yet, na- of no variation in method", it sug-
power by acknowledging tions
andtry gested, "To ensure complete uniformity of
all the time to mask their arbitra-
addressing difference as riness
the and recover them as authentic. The
rendering... recorded music by the All In-
dia Radio should be invariably used as a
incommensurability between arbitrariness
fundamental reality of the social.
guide both to instrumental and vocal ren-
and authenticity renders the nation-form
Second, a politics beyond the
an Utopia. Pursuing this Utopia can dering
only of the Anthem" (ibid: 73). In other
nation has to be based on a words, uniformity is here claimed to be
be an ever-elusive, never-realisable project
of violence. Before I expand on this the
de-territorialised imagination source
idea, of national unity.
let me offer two stories as illustrationsGiven
of such emphasis on homogeneity
that surpasses the territorial
nation-work - one Indian and the other and sameness as the source and essence of
parochialism of the nation-form
Sri Lankan. These stories summarise the the nation, the committee had to over and
and embraces the world as a of the perpetual anxiety and the over again address the question of differ-
source
consequent violence of the nation-form. ence as the problem to be combated in na-
terrain of possibilities, alliances,
and constraints. Let me begin with the Indian story. It is tion-making. Hence, it speaks repeatedly
a story of a newly independent nation of identities based on region (regionalism),
grappling with the anxiety about its na- caste (casteism) and religion (communal-
tionhood and the possible threats to it. In ism), among others, as threats to the young
i960, i e, just 13 years after India became Indian nation. Of these different identities,
independent from British colonial rule, a let me pick up one, i e, the identity of the
conference of state education ministers region vis-à-vis the nation.
recommended formation of a committee
Views of a Section of Tamils
on national integration. The mandate of
the committee, which was named "the The time when the committee was delib-
Committee on Emotional Integration", erating on the emotional integration of
was to "study the role of education in India, a section of the Tamil-speaking
This text is based on the keynote address strengthening and promoting the proce- south spoke a different language of poli-
delivered at the International Tamil Studies sses of emotional integration in national tics. It refused to experience India the
life..."
conference held at the University of Toronto in (moe 1962). The mandate is thus a way the mainstream Indian nationalists
May 2007. confession that Indian nation was not yet wanted it to and sought its political future
MSS Pandian (jnathiaspandian@gmail.com) and it had to be invented. in its own nation, the so-called Dravida
is with the Sarai programme, Centre for the More precisely, the committee's task was Nadu. In downplaying and denying claims
Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi.
to tackle the question of how to manufacture to such separate identity of south India,

Economic & Political weekly OBE3 march 7, 2009 vol xliv no 10 "5

This content downloaded from

175.111.134.80 on Mon, 13 Nov 2023 19:53:43 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
the Committee on Emotional Integration
produced a past which foregrounds cer-
tain networks of circulation which puta-
tively bound together the northern and
perennial anxiety that it produces. Now
role is primarily to accept and adopt them.
What looks like circulation and exchange
let me turn to the possible consequences
of such
at the first look is in fact a one-way flow anxiety. Here I take up a
for most part. Thus, what is offered Sri
as Lankan
a instance.

the southern regions of India: story of unity is premised on a hierarchy

One may recall the beautiful legend of Consequences of Anxiety
among regions. Again, the universalising
Agastya, still the patron saint of the south, claim of this account found in its invoca-
On the night of 31 May 1981, Jaffna town
who crossed the Vindhyas from the north in the Tamil-dominated northern Sri
tion "who does not know", quickly reveals
and never returned. Who does not know
Lanka witnessed one of the worst and de-
itself as nothing more than what is called
that though the Upanishads were uttered
the "Hindu memory". If the regions liberate
first in the forest asrams of the north, Vedic are acts of nationalist vandalism.

philosophy owes so much to the creative andmulti-religious (as they were and are),
The Jaffna Public Library, which was the
critical exposition of it by Shankaracharyathen the non-Hindus have hardly any placepride of the town, was doused and set
from Kerala? Ayodhya, Madura and Vrin-
fire to by the Sri Lankan police force.
in this account of unity. They would surely
davan in the north are places sacred to the
memory of Rama and Krishna, but Rama's
be carrying other memories - memories A V J Chandrakanthan was one among
journey across the south to Ceylon is deeply that are treated as unworthy to be ac-many to visit the library site the next
the
enshrined in Hindu memory, and pilgrimknowledged. In other words, this so-called morning. He poignantly writes,
places like Kanchi and Rameswaram haveclaim to unity excludes. Yet, this is the
On 1 June 1981, at about 8.00 a m, I was
equal claim to reverence (ibid: 8).
story of regional unity the Committee on
standing close to the main gate of library
Even if this mix of myth and historyEmotional Integration could at best pro-premises, as were a few hundred Tamils of all
(and myth as history) is believed to beduce. Nation-work seems never to work. ages and professions in shock and disbelief,
looking helplessly at the smoke and smoul-
true, they, unfortunately for the commit- Such claims to unity among the regions,
dering fire whose tongues took more than
tee and the Indian nation, were neither however, did not square up with the con-
a night to swallow those treasures of inesti-
experienced nor interpreted in the same temporary realities. One of the dilemmas
mable value. The Sinhala reserve police who
way. Let me take the case of Rama's south-faced by the committee was how to ad-doused and torched the library could be seen
ward journey. Southern dissenters had an relaxing a few hundred yards away at the pa-
dress the linguistic differences across dif-
vilion of the Jaffna stadium overlooking the
ferent regions of India. It admits, "The
entirely different position on it. As Selig
burnt library (Chandrakanthan 2001).
Harrison reminds us, question still remains as to which Indian
The Dravidian argument is based on thelanguage, both for the sake of national
Turning to the significance of this terri-
very substance of Hindu mythology, and Thepride and national sentiment, should ble
be event, Chandrakanthan continues,
•Ramayana, so proudly hailed as a force fortaught in all the schools of the Indian Un-
Though a cultural pride of the Tamils, this
synthesis, became the basic text cited to es- ion as a common means of communication
library had rare books and palmyrah-ola-
tablish Aryan iniquity. In Dravidian propa-
and as a common meeting ground for the leaf manuscripts in both Sinhala and Tamil.
ganda the southward march of Rama to the
For more than half a century, it had been a
lair of the evil King Ravana, abductor of Sita,sharing of ideas, a language that is of the
common shrine of study and research for
is nothing less than the allegorical story of land" (moe op cit: 49). The "language thatSinhalas, Tamils and Muslims. It was thus
the triumphal Aryan progress over theis of the land" is the keyword here and it
a profound symbol of the pre-existing inter-
original Dravidian inhabitants of India. To ethnic accommodation. Within its walls
asserts the nation's putative singularity
many a non-Brahman Tamil, the legions of
the Sinhala Buddhist extremist Anagarika
monkeys Rama encounters in the southernand affirms its desire for homogeneity.
Dharmapala and the Tamil-Hindu reformer
jungles to be none other than the Dravid- The committee claimed,
Sreelasree Arumukha Navalar lived side by
ians. Thus the epic is a racial insult before Hindi is spoken by large sections of our
side in harmony - through their writings. On
half told (Harrison i960). people and a number of other languages those neatly arranged teak shelves several
The so-called bonhomie between the spoken in India are closely allied to Hindi,
writers, politicians, religious revivalists and
south and the north that the committee tries as Hindi is allied to them; and therefore, law- makers, Tamil federalists and Sinhala
adoption of Hindi as the common lan- nationalists, who had engaged in virulent
to affirm, is thus based on silencing alter- guage of India would greatly facilitate the
disputations during their lives, rested in si-
native interpretations of the past. Silencing growth of a common medium of communi- lent serenity. Now and with them the hope
can salvage the nation, at least for the mo- cation binding the whole country together
of any harmonious coexistence was reduced
(ibid: 49-50). to ashes (ibid: 160).
ment. Yet, it is as much a source of anxiety
since the repressed can always return. Though the committee could swiftly de- One may dispute specific details of and
cide on the question of which language inflections in Chandrakanthan's account.
Exclusivist Notions
should be the national language by the For instance, Arumukha Navalar need not
There is more to the committee's account
simple rule of majority, the nation had be considered a social reformer by all, but
of the north-south unity. Despite claims to work to do. It admitted, "the crux of
more could be treated as a Saivite sectarian at
unity, the story not only. produces a hierar-
the problem is to make the learning of Hindi least by some. Yet, none can ignore the
chy among regions but is also exclusivist.
in non-Hindi areas practicable. . ." (ibid: 52). metaphorical intent and importance of
Nation-work never seems to end.
All the templates of unity among the Chandrakanthan's account. A library is
regions - Agastya, Upanishads and Rama So far I have dealt with the nation- a province of diversity, representing a
- come from the north: and the south's
form's search for sameness and the cacophony of different voices from the

"" march 7, 2009 voLXLiVNOio D259 Economic & Political weekly

This content downloaded from

175.111.134.80 on Mon, 13 Nov 2023 19:53:43 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 past give their particularisms a function
and of uni-
visions and reproduction of both entities"
for
sity versal
marksrepresentation" (Laclau 1996: 35)- (Krishna 1999:the
209). Irrevocably bound n
for it celebrates
This constant churning and contestation to other identities, yet desiring an elu-
place of
among different sive homogeneity, the nation-form basi-
identities to assume the samenes
role of the universal
source of is indeed the essence cally makes two modes of interventions
nationali
to of democracy. However, it is a threat
reach a for to assert its singularity.
state of
the nation-form the
neity, since the nation-form, as Following Connolly, I will call the first
nation
we have seen, is based on the desire for
sacrifice itsmode of nationalistown
intervention as the
sameness and homogeneity. The anxiety
Dharmapala strategy of attunement,
if i e, the nation-
he
form tries to attune the recalcitrant
of the nation-form in the face of the asser- Navalar.
Arumuka
tion of identities which are not treated as identities to the singular subject position
2 Heart of Nationalist Dilemma national, is well captured, when Karthigesu that it valorises. This is precisely why the
These two stories tell us that the contra-
Sivathamby contemplatively asks, "perhaps Committee on Emotional Integration not
they (the Sri Lankan state) expect the
diction between the desire for homogene- only insists on Hindi as the national
Tamils to become Sinhalas" (Sivathamby
ity and the actually existing and ever- language of India, but also showers praise
op cit: xxiv).
emerging diversity is at the heart of the on those non-Hindi speakers who accept
Sivathamby is right and the Sri Lankan
nationalist dilemma. By unravelling this Hindi to their own disadvantage. It wrote,
state has, to some degree, achieved this.
never resolvable dilemma, let me reflect That many non-Hindi speaking people are
on the nation-form and its inherent Take
and for instance, the case of Kamala, a willing to sink their individual interests for
inevitable violence. survivor of the 1983 anti-Tamil violence the common good is a heartening sign. They

First and foremost, despite claims in

toSri Lanka who had migrated to New have accepted Hindi as the official language
Zealand: even though they realise that it places them
universality, nation-work is métonymie in
at a disadvantage vis-à-vis those whose
nature. That is, in the nation-work it is Once
a when they were in the shop in New mother tongue is Hindi (moe 1962: 51-52).
part that masquerade as representing the Zealand, Kamala's daughter called her amma
whole. In the Indian case, as we have seen, was promptly scolded by her brother, "I
but The sixth amendment to the Sri Lankan
told you not to call her amma outside the constitution enacted by J R Jeyawardene
Hindi-speaking region is claimed to the
house but to call her ammi". Thus he wished
essence of the nation. Hence Hindi is in August 1983 is a similar act seeking at-
to adopt the Sinhala term for "mother", along
with other Sinhala ways, so that they could tunement. It required the Tamil members
claimed to be the language of "the land",
be protected from the ruthless consequences of the Sri Lankan parliament and those
"national pride and national sentiment".
of being Tamil.2
It is no different in the Sri Lankan case in public offices to take an oath of alle-
as well. Writing about those whom he It is the fear of violence which makes giance "to the unitary state of Sri Lanka"
Kamala's family adopt "Sinhala ways", (Wilson 2000: 112).
names as Sinhala "Unitarians", Kahigesu
Sivathamby notes that they and that too only in public. Feigned Sinha- In short, in the national order of things,
la-ness is more an affirmation of her Tamil-speakers in India should become
not only denied the historicity of the other
Tamil-ness than an acceptance of Sinhala- Hindi-speakers and Tamils in Sri Lanka
communities, but also did not include them,
ness. Thus, the Utopian desire of the na- should become Sri Lankans/Sinhalese.
their culture, and their ways of life when
dis- for homogeneity remains, even in the The success of such strategy of attune-
they deal with Sri Lankan culture. The tion
cussions therefore on Sri Lankan music,face of its violence, unrealisable. This ment is primarily based on self-hate and
or dance or literature would only refer to
renders it perennially in a state of anxiety. nationalist violence. William Connolly is
Sinhala music, Sinhala dance and Sinhala
indeed right when he notes,
literature, and there is no reference to As
theWilliam Connolly sums up brilliantly:
presence of Tamil music or Tamil dance"The
or nation is always on the verge of loss" ...what appears from one side as the means
Tamil literature in Sri Lanka (Sivathamby
(Connolly 1999: 90). by which attunement is fostered often ap-
2005: xx). pears from another as the terms through
Incessant Reiteration which painful artifices of normalisation
As we all know, both the métonymie
are enhanced and legitimated (Connolly
claims - Hindi as standing for India and Being always at the verge of loss, the na-
op cit: 14).
Sinhala for Sri Lanka - were and are being tion-form has to continually reiterate and
challenged. In short, nation-work as a me- When the strategy of attunement does
affirm itself. This act of incessant reitera-
not work (as it does not in most cases),
tion, paradoxically, needs identities other
tonymic act is always insecure since what
is excluded can always challenge it. than the national one, identities that arenation asserts its appearance of sover-
the

The masquerade of a particular as uni- to be Othered. Striving to speak itself eignty

into by violent punitive action against
versal can have different outcomes. As being, the Hindu nation needs Muslims those whom it considers as not fitting the

Ernesto Laclau reminds us, "If democracy national order of things. The cases of Sri
as its Other; the Sinhala nation needs
Lankan state violence in the Tamil areas
Tamils as its Other. Thus, as Sankaran
is possible, it is because the universal has
of the north and the east and Indian state
Krishna notes, "...the dialectic between
no necessary body and no necessary
violence in north-east India and Kashomir
the nation and its various ethno nation-
content: different groups, instead, com-
are well-documented cases.
alist fragments is critical to the production
pete between themselves to temporarily

Economic &Political weekly DQ march 7, 2009 volxlivnoio

This content downloaded from

175.111.134.80 on Mon, 13 Nov 2023 19:53:43 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
THE POSTNATIONAL CONDITION =

'Naturalness* of Nation-Form enthusiast for the nation-form, noted, "a never to return to it, following the per-
What is important here is, often suchnation's
vio- existence is... a daily plebiscite" sistent refusal of the Indian National
(Renan
lence does not even get acknowledged as 1996: 53). A little innovation in Congress to address the question of caste
the of
violence given the reined "naturalness" urban youth culture in India such as oppression in the nation-in-the-making
the celebration of the Valentine Day can on the ground that it would be "detri-
nation-form as the only possible of politi-
the source of national anxiety and vio- mental to national unity". Thus for both
cal arrangement. A 2007 editorial inbeThe
Sunday Times of Sri Lanka is a case lence.
in As the Hindu nationalists in India of them it was a concern about how

bybeen arguing, such celebration is for- nations, either claimed to have been fully
have
point. In an editorial on the air strikes
the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam eign to the so-called authentic national formed or in the making, addresses the
(ltte) on Colombo airport, it wrote, culture
"Not of India. Foreignness contami- question of difference.
nates and comes in the way of national
since that fateful Easter Sunday in second
wholeness. Thus nations cannot but be
world war - 5 April 1942, has Sri Lanka Tagore's Disenchantment
been bombed by air as happened last always
Sun- at the verge of loss and hence
Rabindranath Tagore's disenchantment with
always
day night".3 The Sunday Times has got, in be violent. nationalism was almost unconditional.

the best traditions of nationalism, history He wrote,

3 Beyond the Nation-Form
wrong. In its account, the repeated bom- ...the idea of the nation is one of the most
bardment of the Tamil-dominated eastern
Given the impossibility of the nation-form powerful anesthetics that man has invent-
as an enabling political arrangement of ed. Under the influence of its fumes the
province of Sri Lanka by the Sri Lankan
our times - after all, we have experiment- whole people can carry out its systematic
state does not figure at all. In other words,
the violence of the state in the name ofed with it for over two long centuries - the programme of the most virulent self-seek-
na-
ing without being in the least aware of its
tion is so normalised that it ceases to be work of imagination and the work of poli-
moral perversion... (Tagore 1992: 73).
the concern of those who in the métonym- tics need to seek newer, pluralistic and
Thus, nationalism sedates; and self-seek-
ie work of nation represent the national enabling forms of politics beyond the na-
authentic. tion-form. While this much is clear to me,
ing is its basis. If he saw no merit in na-
tionalism, it was because of the quest for
In short, given the paradoxical quality what this new political form will be is not.
of the nation-form - as evident in its desire It belongs to the realm of the future. Yet
power that was and is central to any na-
for homogeneity and yet its need to have some of the critics of nationalism from thetionalist project. According to him, "It has
difference to articulate its distinctiveness evolved a perfect organisation of power,
past can give us clues as to how to imagine
but not spiritual idealism. It is like the
- it cannot escape the path of seeking re- this new political arrangement for the fu-
venge. This is precisely where Arjun Ap- ture. I take here Rabindranath Tagore,
pack of predatory creatures that must
have its victims..." (ibid: 58). For him,
padurai's comment on what he calls "the one of whose poems has been adopted as
fear of small numbers" gains important. the national anthem of India, and E V Ra-even the nationalist quest for liberation
Meditating on the question of majority masamy, who radically transformed the
from the colonial rule was an inadequate
and minority, he perceptively notes, political common sense of the Tamil- basis to justify the nation-form as a sign of
speaking south India during the 20th cen-freedom. He reasoned, "We must never
Numerical majorities can become predatory
and ethnocidal with regard to the fear of tury, as two instances of such critique of
forget in the present day that those people
small numbers precisely when some mi- nationalism.5 Their critiques of nation-
who have got their political freedom are
norities (and their small numbers) remind form, as we will see, became available
not necessarily free; they are merely pow-
these majorities of the small gap which lies
only within the ethical horizon of the de-
erful. The passions which are unbridled in
between their condition as majorities and
the horizon of unsullied national whole, a territorialised post- national imagination.them are creating huge organisations of
pure untainted national ethnos. This sense Both Rabindranath Tagore and Rama- slavery in the guise of freedom" (ibid: 93).
of incompleteness can drive majorities into samy had their share of nationalism.His reference to "huge organisations of
paroxysms of violence against minorities... Tagore was an active propagandist of the
slavery" is, I speculate, a reference to the
(Appadurai 2006: 8).
Swadeshi movement which sought the nation state and its practices.
Thus, it is not so much the threat from boycott of foreign-made goods by Indi- Lacking the poet's sensibility but being
minorities but their very presence in the ans, following the partition of Bengal in
a man of the masses, Ramasamy did not
nation space, is the problem. 1905. Ramasamy joined the Indian Na-talk of metaphorical "spiritual idealism".
Yet even an act of perfect ethnic cleans- tional Congress in 1920 only to leave it
Being a rationalist to the core, "spiritual"
ing, a very difficult possibility indeed,4 five years later in 1925. He played a com-
might have sounded unacceptable to him.
cannot produce the unsullied national mendable role in organising the Non- He unpacked the play of power dynamics
in the nation-form in terms of what it
whole since identities that putatively sul- Cooperation Movement in the Tamil re-
ly the national whole are not always al- gion. Tagore's turn against nationalism
meant for different sections of the society.
ready known. They most often belong to was presumably facilitated by the devas-
Referring to the demand for self-rule or
the realm of emergent and "not yet". tation and large-scale loss of life wroughtswarajya by the mainstream Indian na-
They surface as if from nowhere. This by the first world war (Thompson 1992). tionalists, he posed, "Is the Brahmin's rule
is perhaps why Ernest Renan, that great Ramasamy left his nationalism behind, swarajya for the Parayas (untouchables)?
r 0

DO march 7, 2009 vol xliv no io IEE9 Economic & Political weekly

This content downloaded from

175.111.134.80 on Mon, 13 Nov 2023 19:53:43 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Is the is no inequality based on birth 4 We have
that there cat's ruleto remember here that it is often difficultsw
even in conflict situations to determine one's
and opposes practices which are based on
landlords' rule sw
identity. For instance, during 1983 anti-Tamil
Is such inequality,
the rule we can accept him as a violence
of in Sri Lanka, Tamils could
the pass off as
Sinhalese and Muslims and save themselves. See
the labourers?".6
Dravidian" (Ramasamy 1991:8). Kanapathipillai (1992: 335)-
question 5 On the politics
to ofthe
E V Ramasamy, see M S S Pan- n
dian, Brahmin and Non-Brahmin: Genealogies of
to and renders visible what Rabindranath Premises to Re-imagine Politics the Tamil Political Present (Delhi: Permanent
Black), chapter 6.
Tagore names as the "slavery in the guise This is an exceedingly simple and in cer-
6 Viduthalai, 19 January 1948, in V Anaimuthu (éd.),
of freedom". tain ways, a colourless summary of the Periyar Chinthanaikal (Tiruchirapalli: Thinker's
Let me stay with Ramasamy's question thoughts of two complex thinkers on Forum, 1974), Vol II, p 673. For a detailed analysis
of E V Ramasamy's critique of nationalism, see
for a little longer. First of all, by setting at nationalism. But it offers us at least a M S S Pandian (1999).
7 Speech by E V Ramasamy at Kollampaalayam on
play a range of identities based on power couple of premises to re-imagine politics
19 September 1937.
or lack of it within the so-called nation- beyond the nation-form. First, politics has
8 KudiArasu, 17 may 1931.
space, he contests the singularity and to be a perennial contestation of different
homogeneity of the nation. Second, he forms of power by acknowledging and ad- REFERENCES
views national self-rule as an impossible dressing difference as the fundamental Abraham, It
troduction:
political project given the innumerable reality of the social. Second, a politics be- van Schende
hierarchies and relations of authority yond nation has to be based on a de-terri- and Crimina
er Side of G
and subordination. Third, he seeks a torialised imagination that surpasses ter- apolis: India
form of politics that will allow space for ritorial parochialism of the nation-form Anderson, B

multiple contestations by those who are and embraces the world as a terrain of
Reflections o
(London: Ve
victims of different forms of power. possibilities, alliances, and constraints. Appadurai, A
Essay on th
If nationalism glorifies some of its selec- Only by unsettling our normalised belief
London: Duk
tively chosen past as the source of national in nation as the only possible political Chandrakant
alism: An In
authenticity, Tagore and Ramasamy, freed form, we can think through the poten-
Sri Lankan
from the burden of the nation and tran- tials these enabling premises offer us. velopment i
Let me conclude by once again return- Delhi: Peng
scending its territorial parochialism,
Chatterjee, P
looked for intellectual and political re- ing to Tagore. Narrating his own brush ments: Colo
sources from the world at large. For them, with nationalism and provoking us go be- Oxford Univ
Connolly, Wi
borders did not matter but ideas did. Writ- yond it, he writes,
(Minneapoli
ing about colonialism in India when anti- Even though from childhood I have been Press), p 90.
Harrison, Selig S (i960): India: The Most Dangerous
colonial mass mobilisation was already at taught that idolatry of the nation is almost
Decades (Madras: Oxford University Press), p 127.
better than reverence to God and humanity,
its peak, Tagore, for instance, noted, "In Kanapathipillai, Valli (1992): "July 1983: The Surviv-
I believe I have outgrown that teaching, and ers' Experience" in Veena Das (éd.), Mirrors of Vi-
India, we are suffering from this conflict olence: Communities, Riots and Survivors in South
it is my conviction that my countrymen will
between the spirit of the West and the Na- Asia (Delhi: Oxford University Press 1990).
truly gain their India by fighting against the
tion of the West" (Tagore op cit: 58). For education which teaches them that a coun-Krishna, Sankaran (1999): Postcolonial Insecurities:
India, Sri Lanka and the Question of Nationhood
him, the spirit of the west was indeed ac- try is greater than the ideals of humanity (Minneapolis and London: Minnesota University
(Tagore op cit: 83). Press), p 209.
ceptable, while the nations of the west
Laclau, Ernesto (1996): Emancipation(s) (London and
were not. Similarly, Ramasamy argued, "Ideals of humanity" - yes, in the plural New York: Verso), p 35.
"The 'Hindu India' which believes that so that one can avoid the trap of homoge- MoE (1962): Report of the Committee on Emotional In-
tegration, Ministry of Education, Government of
people should abide by the authority of nising humanism - is precisely where we India, Delhi, p 169.
the ruler and he is god-like, has been have to begin our imagination beyond thePandian, M S S (1999): "Nation from Its Margins:
Notes on E V Ramasamy's 'Impossible Nation'" in
taught by the 'English India' that the ruler nation-form and its violence. Rajeev Bhargava, Amiya Bagchi and R Sudarshan
should abide by the people and he is the (éd.), Multicultualism, Liberalism and Democracy
(New Delhi: Oxford University Press).
servant of the people".7 Similar to Tagore, notes
Ramasamy (1991): Dravida Nadu, 23 November 1946,
he too traced the failure of the English in 1 While Benedict Anderson argues nations as quoted in K Kesavan, Dravidar lyakkamum Mozhi
modular already imagined in the west, Partha Kolkaiyum (Sivaganga: Chelma), p 8.
India to their national greed "to carry on Chatterjee contests this position and claims it as Renan, Ernest (1996): "What Is a Nation?" in Geoff
their rule in this country (India) forever historically specific. For their respective views, Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny (éd.), Becoming Na-
see Anderson (1983), Chatterjee (1993)- tional: A Reader (New York and Oxford: Oxford
and to generously plunder and transfer 2 See Kanapathipillai (1992): "The Indian case is not University Press), p 53-
the wealth of this country to theirs".8 different. As a recent newspaper article puts it,
Sivathamby, Karthigesu (2005): Being a Tamil and
"Delhi attracts labourers, domestic helps and rick-
Sri Lankan (Colombo: Avikam), p xx.
Further, his notion of the Dravidian, shaw pullers from West Bengal and Jharkhand...
Tagore, Rabindranath (1992): Nationalism (Kolkata:
Many among them are Muslims... But ask them
which he used as an all-embracing trope their names, and there will be a stony silence for a Rupa and Co).
for multiple forms of oppression, was in- while before they stammer out a Hindu name." Thompson, EP (1992): "Introduction" in Rabindranath
Susenjit Guha, "Shahida at Home, Shyamoli at Tagore, Nationalism (Calcutta: Rupa and Co
clusive enough to accommodate anyone Work", Deccan Chronicle, 18 September 2007 (1917), PP 5-8.
from beyond the narrow parochial nation- 3 "Air Terror and Comedy of Error", The Sunday Times, Wilson, A Jeyaratnam (2000): bn Lankan lamxl
1 April 2007. I am thankful to Darshan Ambalava- Nationalism: Its Origins and Development in the
al territory, if he or she stood for the equal- nar for bringing this editorial to my notice and to 19th and 20th Centuries (University of British
Columbia: UBC Press).
ity of all. He asserted, "If Japanese accept Pradeep Jaganathan for gettimg me a copy of it.

Economic &Political weekly UBS march 7, 2009 volxlivnoio "9

This content downloaded from

175.111.134.80 on Mon, 13 Nov 2023 19:53:43 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms